Chip-designer ARM wants to push itself in the server market and take on Intel on its home ground. Chief Executive Officer Warren East said that it will take a bit of time, perhaps a run up, with the wind behind it, but ARM could start chipping away at Intel dominance in the server market by 2014 if the Gods are willing.

He said that server manufacturers are already looking at chips based on ARM’s technology particularly as the outfit has been planning servers which need less power and will make data centres more efficient. However, it would take years before there were a lot of ARM servers system designers who were actively considering ARM architectures, East claimed.

He is really doing unto Intel what it is planning to do unto Arm in the mobile market. While Intel rules supreme on the server market, Arm is in control of Intel's dream – the mobile market. After a decade of trying to break into phones, Intel says its chips will begin appearing in models by the second half of next year, which is a prediction remarkably like East's for server chips.

ARM's plans for servers involve adapting mobile-phone chip design, based around its Cortex lineup. This technology has been under the bonnet of the iPhone, as well as gear using Android. ARM-designed chips are really happy when they are free from battery constraints and can run fast enough to power servers, East said. Because they were designed from the ground up to work on battery power, they’re more energy-efficient than Intel chips and aren’t as hot.

He claimed that a server with ARM chips could run on half the lecky that an Intel chip needs. People make predictions all the time, I have predicted several times that I will win the lottery. However Arm is in good position to make its predictions come true.

At its analyst conference call in November, AMD might get ready to talk about some more exact dates on the launch date of its Bulldozer architecture. At this time, AMD is only telling the world that Bulldozer will launch in 2011 but John Fruehe, AMD’s director of servers has said that partners should get samples in Q4 2010.

In November time we will get something better than just shipping in 2011. Our sources are implying that Bulldozer prototypes are in quite good shape and that despite the rumours that see it being shipped in the second half of 2011, we actually might see its first Opteron server chips as soon as first half of 2011.

Mr Fruehe did confirm that AMD has been playing with chips in house and he said that they are happy with what they are seeing. He implies that partners should be excited once they get the chips in Q4 2010.

AMD can just hope that all will go well, as it has some serious market share to regain.